Geological hazards in the Azores archipelago: Volcanic terrain instability and human vulnerability

Malheiro, Ana

doi:10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2006.03.012

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Therefore, the existing vegetation cover is not effective in preventing shallow slope movements, but endorses the infiltration of surface water leading to a more rapid and thorough saturation of the soil mantle, thereby promoting soil failure. Additionally, during rainstorms characterized by strong winds, C. japonica root system can be uprooted; such uprooting will contribute to trigger larger slope failures and to increase the volume of the disrupted mass (Gaspar et al, 1997;Marques, 2004;Malheiro, 2006).…”

Section: Study Area and Landslide Incidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall patterns and critical values associated with landslides in Povoação County (São Miguel Island, Azores): relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation

Marques

Zêzere

Trigo

et al. 2007

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:São Miguel Island (Azores) has been affected by hundreds of destructive landslide episodes in the last five centuries, triggered either by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or rainfall episodes, which were responsible for many deaths and very important economic losses.Among the instability causes, meteorological factors are of primary importance on Povoação County, namely the high recurrence rate of calamitous rainfall triggering landslides. The most recent catastrophic episode took place on the 31st October 1997 when almost 1000 soil slips and debris flows were triggered, and 29 people died in the Ribeira Quente village.The role of rainfall on regional landslide activity was analysed applying cumulative rainfall methods. The method comprises the reconstruction of both absolute and calibrated antecedent rainfalls associated with each major landslide event. The critical rainfall combination (amount-duration) responsible for each landslide event was assessed and a rainfall critical threshold for landslide occurrence was calculated. Rainfall-triggered landslides in the study area are ruled by the function I D 144Ð06 D 0Ð5551 , and they are related both to short duration precipitation events (1-3 days) with high average intensity (between 78 and 144 mm/day) and long-lasting rainfall episodes (1-5 months) with a lower intensity (between 9 and 22 mm/day).The impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the regional precipitation regime was evaluated. It is shown that the monthly precipitation of São Miguel is largely modulated by the NAO mode presenting a significant negative correlation with the NAO index. This result arises from the NAO control on the travelling latitude of most storm tracks that cross the Northern Atlantic Ocean.

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Section: Study Area and Landslide Incidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall patterns and critical values associated with landslides in Povoação County (São Miguel Island, Azores): relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation

Marques

Zêzere

Trigo

et al. 2007

Hydrological Processes

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“…Despite these achievements, the complex interactions of multiple parameters and inherent uncertainties have limited the application of procedures to evaluate vulnerability to geological hazards and human activities (Malheir 2006;Chen et al 2008). Analogy-based approaches can be used to incorporate preference patterns of multiattribute decision makers with unquantifiable, incomplete, unobtainable information, and even partially unknown facts and/or attributes (Cheng and Zhang 1999;Mao 2003) by comparisons with an existing reference database.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RS-based fuzzy multiattribute assessment of eco-environmental vulnerability in the source area of the Lishui River of northwest Hunan Province, China

Yang

Chen

2015

Nat Hazards

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Intrinsic uncertainties within geo-hazards affecting the source area of the Lishui River region exhibit chief challenges for environmental management and regional development. This study employs a fuzzy multiattribute approach to rank the eco-environmental vulnerability to geo-hazards for 38 given geographic units in the study area. The closeness coefficients for alternatives are applied to sort the eco-environmental vulnerability based on the distances of alternatives from the fuzzy positive-ideal and fuzzy negative-ideal solutions. The multiple attributes used in the ranking are geological characteristics, geological hazards, and human impacts. In general, results of the multiattribute method are consistent with those of a synthetic index method. Our results suggest that geological configurations/characteristics and the associated range and density of geohazards are the critical determinants of eco-environmental vulnerability. Human activities, however, slightly increase the overall vulnerability of geographic units. Results of the study aid preliminary resource exploitation and eco-environmental protection, yielding support for the long-term sustainable development of the region.

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“…Many countries have to cope the issue of the geological instability due to the volcanic activity [1]. The latter can be extremely dangerous near the volcanic vents but also in the more suburban areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic and gas monitoring of volcanic sites

Andò

Baglio

Lombardo

2015

2015 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium (SAS)

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Geophysical and geochemical monitoring of volcanic areas have a notable impact for the assessment of the geological instability and for safety of the populations. Nowadays the low cost Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) could represent a good way to perform a real-time monitoring task.In this paper a customized wireless multi-sensor architecture is presented, suitable for the implementation of a distributed monitoring system of geophysical and geochemical quantities within volcanic areas. The idea behind the proposed solution is the use of a "Smart Dust" approach, consisting in the spread of low cost devices over the while inspected area. In particular, the sensor node proposed is equipped with two Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) devices, a triaxial accelerometer and a CO 2 sensor, and a novel low cost inkjet printed CO 2 sensor. A microcontroller platform and a ZigBee communication tool have been adopted to allow a context-adaptive architecture by selecting different operating modes.

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Geological hazards in the Azores archipelago: Volcanic terrain instability and human vulnerability

Cited by 24 publications

References 6 publications

Rainfall patterns and critical values associated with landslides in Povoação County (São Miguel Island, Azores): relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation

Rainfall patterns and critical values associated with landslides in Povoação County (São Miguel Island, Azores): relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation

RS-based fuzzy multiattribute assessment of eco-environmental vulnerability in the source area of the Lishui River of northwest Hunan Province, China

Seismic and gas monitoring of volcanic sites

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